Ramsay the True
by Tomyris
Summary: I did not think the course that was take in Season 6 with the tale of Ramsay Bolton's attempt to hold power in the North was all that realistic. So, I decided to write a better one, respecting Ramsay's horrifying brilliance and the famed loyalty of the North to the Starks. This, then, is the tale of Ramsay's Northern Campaign.
1. Chapter 1

His father's life-blood spilling out onto the granite of Winterfell's apartments, Ramsay stared down inarticulately at his body for a while, affected as he had not been by any other kill in his life. It seemed like a strange kind of disembodiment, though he felt no heed to the notion the difference in experience was on account of the Gods' fury at kinslaying. No.

It was a feeling of freedom he had never known before. The absolute freedom of _action_ which had been denied to him, so that before he had always sought his freedom in _pleasure_.

Suddenly, the control of his fate that his father had exercised was gone. He was legitimised by order of the King. He was the Lord of the North by the King's decree. He was also standing in a room with his father's body, and there would be questions.

He looked again at the ethereal face of the Leech Lord, and started. _Questions_. Of Questions, before, there had been precious few. Ramsay knew, intensely, that he had to act quickly. There was something unique about this moment. It was, in its own way, pleasurable. It was like all of time, space, and experience hovered around his decisions. All that remained was the matter of...

Ramsay looked up. "Maester Wolkan?"

Wolkan looked down at Roose's body, stuttering without forming words.

"Maester Wolkan!" Ramsay straightened, eyes hardening to a glare. His hand fell to the hilt of his sword.

"M.. M.. M'lord?"

"Bring me _Lady_ Walda and her son."

Wolkan's face turned chill, and he shied away from Ramsay, paling. "M'Lord, Lady Walda is resting with her son..."

"I said bring them to me," Ramsay barely more than whispered.

"M'lord, is it truly necessary..."

"Do you question me?"

"M'lord, the northern houses, they will not follow you, please, hear my advice, I..."

Ramsay's sword was halfway out of the hilt when he stopped drawing it. Wolkan was a simpering idiot, but he was right. If he killed his baby brother right now, all the houses of the North would not accept any explanation whatsoever except that he had murdered the boy. _Give it a few years... Especially in the midst of a long winter, infants sometimes take sick and die._

He sheathed the sword. "It was poison that killed my father, was it not?"

"Absolutely, M'lord!"

"It will look like poison when his body is brought out, Maester Wolkan?"

"A... Absolutely, M'lord."

Ramsay's face twisted oddly, almost grotesque, and he looked again to his father's fallen figure. A rush of advice came back. _By marrying you to Sansa, we have essentially betrayed the Lannisters..._

 _The Northern houses will only follow a rightful Stark... Or their legitimate heirs._

"Damn you, father! You take all the pleasure from a kill!" Ramsay turned away in disgust, and strode from the room, returning to his own apartments. The weight of the lordship pressed dangerously, not for responsibilities, but because the burst of freedom at once constrained. He had to secure power for himself, for _himself_ , not for his father's schemes.

Taking his wine, he retreated from his apartments to the hot spring baths of Winterfell, mostly now abandoned and battered, but one pool still adequate for bathing. The pool where his Reek had been with him, until the unbelievable betrayal. That proved something: He could create a creature, he could forge a creature, use a creature, make a creature love him.

It would still betray him afterwards. _Nothing_ was trustworthy. Certainly not the Houses of the North! If he could not make his Reek obey him, what kind of madness was it to expect that the Lordly Houses would follow the man he knew they would call behind his back _Ramsay Snow, Kinslayer_?

Breathing hard, he looked at the wall, and felt like he was seeing ghosts, far too close to the crypts of the Starks. "I have never yet been failed by fortune and my own intellect," he spoke aloud. "I will take the North! I will! I must!"

The walls, of course, did not answer. After a while, he rose from the bath, and mute servants taken from the Dreadfort serving to dry him. _If only I had some way to make the Lords follow me..._

In the coming days he saw their stares, their looks of contempt, their open doubt at the story of poison that laid his father low. Ramsay did what he could. He led the services, as a faithful and pious son, in the Godswood of Winterfell, he personally helped inter his father, the silent and accusing eyes of Roose and the odd tenderness with which he had to treat the body, compared with all the others, silently chilling his soul. He looked to the stars each night, and wondered.

On the fourth day, fate delivered him an opportunity in the form of the Smalljohn Umber, leading before him a wildling lass and a young boy. When he hastened outside into the courtyard of Winterfell at the news of the Smalljohn's arrival, Ramsay was transfixed. He could not believe it, this singular moment, so incredible as to make the doubter pious to the Gods.

He stared, for the Smalljohn brought with him Rickon Stark in fetters. A light, a brilliant sun, illuminated his heart at once. Ramsay saw the boy, felt like fate and fortune had endorsed his survival and his rule after all. Pausing three steps from the bottom of the stair, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, with the Lords who had followed Roose all about, and a weepy Wanda Frey in the corner with her infant, he felt at once he had what he had needed. A token to secure the loyalty of all the fighting men of the North.

Ramsay started down the steps, and all the eyes were on him. The eyes of Lords who for centuries had been loyal retainers of House Stark. Watching, waiting, wondering at what would come of his approach toward Rickon, the boy transfixed by the prospect of facing the terrifying bastard of Lord Roose Bolton. He met the boy's eyes...

And Ramsay Snow smiled, and reaching him, dropped to his knees. Outright gasps shook the room. Rickon's eyes widened in shock, and the Smalljohn outright recoiled from the scene.

"M'Lord Rickon Stark, Warden of the North, I beg you leave of forgiveness for my father's actions in betraying your noble and storied house. Though I am but a legitmised bastard and have no right to this place of Winterfell as my father might have proclaimed from the declaration of our King Tommen, I pray that you will forgive me for my father's actions in the death of your brother and the violation of the guest oath. I beg Your Lordship that my father is dead at the hands of our shared enemies. That you are young, and need counsel, counsel taught at the side of my father. And I desire for myself, not more than Dreadfort under your overlordship, and the lands of those traitors who would resist us."

"Please, M'Lord, take my confidence and my sword and know that as the rightful heir of Winterfell, I shall serve and protect you and insure that, as had always been intended by the House Lannister and House Baratheon in King's Landing, you are recognised as the rightful Lord of the North, that this terrible war be brought to a swift end, and that the traitors to King Tommen at the Wall who threaten the peace of the realms shall be brought to heel by my sword. Robb's aspirations brought ruin to the north, though he was a brave and loyal man. Let us, please, M'lord Rickon, have peace. Let me be your Regent, and end this dreadful bloodshed. Long Live House Stark!"

As he had spoken, the murmurs grew, and then the shouts. "Yes!"

"Surely!"

"For Lord Rickon and King Tommen!"

"The Gods have touched Lord Ramsay with wisdom upon the loss of his father! What a moment! What loyalty! Who could call this man a bastard after this day!?"

"Hail to Lord Rickon!"

"Hail, Hail! Hail to Lord Rickon!"

The chambers erupted into shouts and drawn swords were thrust into the sky.

Rickon stared at the kneeling Ramsay in shock, confusing, and he stutted, looking around the halls he had been forced to abandon as barely more than a babe, at a situation he scarcely comprehended. "I... I... Lord Ramsay, I... Let us have peace, Lord Ramsay."

The throne room erupted into cheers, and Ramsay rose, body feeling heady with a euphoria he had known before only with his Reek, and stood at Rickon's side. _It works! Look at them! Not a one would raise a sword against me right now! It works!_ He led Rickon through his father's halls, led him to be feasted, introduced him to Walda and praised the grace of the young lad.

And as the feast was set out, excused himself to the privy, and pulled Maester Wolkan to the side. "A drought of Milk of the Poppy for the young Lord after he has had so many terrible adventures and hardships in the north, to help him sleep in halls where his entire family lays dead or in the hands of traitors, won't you, Maester Wolkan?"

"I, ... To help him sleep, or to help him _sleep_ , M'lord?"

"He should have a long life, Maester, but if you value your's, it will be unconcerned with affairs of state."

"...M'lord."


	2. Chapter 2

Men whispered tales of both demons and miracles. They were centred on the same man, Jon Snow, King of the North. In the South, the Church of the Seven might have endorsed the miracle, and proclaimed him... Crowned and ordained by the Gods, a ruler at once secular and sacred. Or they might have condemned him and raised an army against him.

In the North, in these lands of old Gods and old Ways, there was not the simple clarity of action between one choice and the other. Between the Gods approving and disapproving. There were many Gods, and they had their own agendas, their own objectives, their own purposes. All were half-forgotten in the timelessness of their weakness, the uncounted centuries that stretched back from the frigid present, through summers brilliant and winters deadly.

Through winters unending. Like the one that he was in now, it half seemed. A thing of legend, a thing, perhaps, of pure evil in itself. The Old Gods had endured that, and they had endured the Seven. The faith, the acceptance of faith, of the pitilessness of the environment, of the capriciousness of the will of the Gods, of the surety of only a Man's oath given before the pain of their horrible tortures... That was what the North hewed to. Nothing more.

Davos was a humble man at heart but not a fool, or at least if he had been one he no longer was. He followed Jon Snow now, and in following him, would be judged by that standard of the pitiless North. His loyalty was required, and he had certainly given it. But he was also not at all sure about where those Old Gods stood, not even with his new Lord. Oh, certainly, he followed Jon Snow. Melisandre followed Jon Snow now. Stannis... Had been irrevocably lost. And yet for all that it seemed the magic of the woman who had proclaimed him chosen, the saviour of the world, that had revived the dark-haired Stark bastard who was by rights Jon Stark, legitimised chosen heir of Robb Stark, King of the North.

Did that cast aside the Old Gods as a mockery and proclaim again the rightness of the Lord of Light? Such a thought made Davos' stomach churn. He had been raised a good Sevener, and had followed his Lord to the Light, but what he had seen had done nothing but turn and churn his stomach. It was not something he would care to reprise, even in the service of the young King who had risen, to lead them again.

Against the living dead.

The irony was not lost on some of the Night's Watch. Most hid it, but some were bold enough to speak openly.

"Do you fancy he cannot be raised as the Walkers do now? Perhaps he knows how to beat them... And perhaps he shall make us all do the same. I imagine I shall be first, if it's so, and he'll tell me how important it is, to fight the dead you must die first..."

Davos turned away from the conversation. He was not to be Jon's enforcer. And that man in particular was simply being himself, no ken to more treason. But who knew, further to the south, what legends, whispers, rumours of how Jon Snow had become Jon Stark, of how the oaths of the Nightwatch had not been broken... Rumours of powers which might just as well say he was the Night's King. Davos knew that Jon was a man, a living man, but how could he convince the whole of the North? How could he contend with this religion, this culture, this land of loyalty and the importance of word, about which he had cared or thought nothing at all even three years ago? About the kind of place that would keep the legend of the Night's King for thousands of years... To have it revealed to have indeed been true.

Davos shivered at even a thought of the legend, at the un-life it had been given, and then as he walked... There was another being to make him shiver, standing before him.

In red. Oh, he had worked with her. He had pleaded with her to revive Jon! He knew how important the man was to all of their futures. To facing what was beyond the Wall. But in the circumstances, he would hardly trust Melisandre more than he once had.

She clearly had something on her mind, anyway. "Ser Davos," she started, holding a letter. "We have received disqueting news from Winterfell." Her face was nonetheless calm. "I would speak to you to understand its significance."

"You might as well be His Grace's Mistress of Whispers, Lady Melisandre... What does it say?" He asked gruffly, his lack of letters no more pressing than at times like these. He had always thought... At his age, it was not quite important enough to rectify the want of them, but the war had made him regret it on several occasions.

"Ah, of course." She held it up and began to read softly aloud. "I, Lord Ramsay Bolton of the Dreadfort, Head of the House Bolton, do hereby proclaim that Lord Rickon Stark, the rightful and true Lord of the North, has appointed me his Regent. I have knelt to M'Lord Rickon, and have given up the claim of my father to Winterfell, in return for which Lord Rickon has graciously confirmed by legitimisation, and authorised me to seek peace with the Crown and His Grace, King Tommen, on the grounds of the recognition of Lord Rickon as the rightful Lord of the North and the restoration of peace and the relationship of the Crown and the North established under the reign of Good King Robert and in the days of Lord Eddard. I ask all the Lords and Chiefs of the North to repair to myself to halt the treasonous and outrageous claim of one Jon Snow, to usurp the Lordship of his trueborn brother and make himself the King in the North, once again bringing to our lands the devastation of War, even in the midst of a winter in which the Gods themselves beg we unite ourselves around the leadership of the rightful House Stark!"

Melisandre finished reading, folding the letter and looking to Davos. "So what is the significance? It is grave, is it not? Your face betrays it."

"Oh, very grave," Davos asked, rocked back on his heels inside, even if he managed not to be, the old sailor, in fact. "I would... In fact, it is incredible. I would have never dreamed to have thought that the death of Lord Bolton would be anything other than a moment of triumph for us. But Ramsay Snow... Who could have ever imagined it? That he'd write something such as this?"

"It can be quite amazing what life will do to survive, as filled with light as it is, when it knows its back is to the wall," Melisandre replied. "The lengths to which it will go... Indeed, sometimes it falls to darkness. And sometimes it rises to the moment. What does it mean, politically, Ser Davos?"

"Northmen good and true will rally to the cause of Lord Rickon Stark. They will serve him as the legitimate and rightful heir of the North. They will say that not even the decree of King Robb could make a bastard come to the throne before the trueborn son of the beloved Ned, and so they will fight gladly for the Bastard of the Dreadfort in the name of the young Lord. Those who seek independence... Those who heard of Robb's decree with their own ears or close to it... They will stay loyal to His Grace. The others... Ramsay will keep his father's support, at least. More likely, the lords who are presently wavering are sure to declare for Lord Rickon now."

"You mean to say that the position of our King has become precarious?" Her eyes flashed.

"Indeed."

"We should alert him immediately..."

Davos stiffened. "He is with his sister, and she..."

"She will know sooner or later. She is woman enough now to stand it," Melisandre started off immediately. Those words were laced with a peculiar bitterness which Davos decided it wise to not attempt to understand.

Shortly enough they were shown in by the guards, to the room where Jon and Sansa quietly sat at the same time, reviewing ledgers and maps. They were taking the business of rulership seriously, though even from the short interplay before them, it was clear some of it was more Sansa's than Jon's.

"Your Grace," Melisandre began politely, but the politeness of her words could not hide the content. "Ill tidings from Winterfell have come."

"Ill tidings?" He looked up, his face betraying the fear at all the different kinds of news it might be.

"Lord Bolton is dead, and Ramsay Snow..."

"That is hardly an ill tiding," Jon offered with some humour.

"...Has your brother, and has proclaimed him Lord of the North, with himself as Regent. He is sending an appeal to the Lords and Chiefs of the North, Your Grace, commanding them to repair to his side against you."

As she spoke, Sansa paled further and further. "I..." her face set. "Well. One chance in ten, that he was capable of this. But Jon, we have to ... Now we must get Rickon out of his hands, or else.."

"I know." Jon replied, looking up to a ceiling which held no more answers than Melisandre did. "And with him having a fair chance to rally the whole North against us, too. Well, I ..."

Melisandre's eyes bored into him. "Do not relent."

"He wants us to feel hopeless," Sansa murmured. "It's how he works. And... This is the North. We want freedom, and in winter, with the Walkers at the wall, we want a man to lead us, Jon. Not a boy. It's been done before, in the history of the North..."

"You're going to have to find an answer to this then, sister. And fast. Something in the history of our house..." His voice turned bitter. "That will convince men to fight for a bastard against the rightful heir of House Stark."


End file.
